Regularly, acquired X-ray image information is displayed to a person, e.g. an operator, employing post-processing functionality like adjustability of contrast, brightness and sharpness of the X-ray image information for providing a personalized, preferred look for the depictation of X-ray image information. This may be the case e.g. in medical imaging applications, security imaging applications or inspection imaging applications. According post-processing functionality may only alter the way X-ray image information is displayed without actually changing acquisition parameters like e.g. a certain dosage setting resulting in a patient dose. Especially in medical imaging applications the ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) requirement must be met while maintaining an image quality and thus patient dose to allow acquisition of X-ray image information with sufficient detail to allow evaluating X-ray image information with regard to the intended application.
E.g. in case of medical imaging applications, a clinical user may have a set of acquired X-ray images, e.g. of patients. The X-ray images may be acquired directly from an X-ray imaging apparatus, e.g. a CT system, or may be stored in an image database on a storage element being previously acquired. The images may be stored as raw images, i.e. as they have been acquired, without any further post-processing. When displaying acquired X-ray images on a display element to the operator, there may be limited post-processing functionality available for varying the look and feel of the acquired image information like adjusting contrast, brightness and/or sharpness, possibly at the cost of more noise within the picture. However, this kind of post-processing functionality may not alter image information itself, e.g. the intrinsic signal-to-noise ratio of the acquired image information, but merely changes the look, thus keeping the intrinsic signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) unaltered. Known post-processing functionality may not allow an operator to estimate a priori e.g. how much image quality of an X-ray image would be degraded in case the dosage setting for acquiring X-ray images would be reduced.
Accordingly, it may be beneficial to determine, in particular simulate, image quality of an X-ray image as a function of applied dosage of X-radiation.